Barber Motorsports Park is owned by George Barber, an accomplished driver, who raced Porsches in the 1960s and early '70s and successful businessman. Over the years he amassed a collection of motorcycles and after establishing a non-profit foundation in 1994 opened a museum, displaying 325 motorcycles from around the world and some vintage cars a year later. In 1998, he sold the family business and donated $54 million to the foundation in order to build a new museum and a road course, on which to run the collection.

By 2002, a 740 acre site in the hills east of Birmingham was chosen. A new museum was built, housing the expanded collection of 1,200 motorcycles, with Up to 600 on display at any one time. It's been certified by Guinness as the largest museum of its type. The road course was designed by South African race track designer Alan Wilson, with three layouts. The main circuit, which is a 15-turn, 2.370-mile (3.70 km) road course, plus the short circuit and club circuit. The venue, opened in 2003 and has hosted Grand-Am, Vintage Racing Series events and AMA Superbike. It serves as the home of the Porsche Sport Driving School and the Kevin Schwantz Suzuki School. One feature that stands out are the series of metal sculptures around the track. The large spider alongside Turns 5/6 has lead to this section of track being nicknamed 'Charlotte's Web'.

This Sunday will be the 8th running of the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park. The race was first held on April 11, 2010 and was won by Hélio Castroneves driving for Team Penske, in a Dallara IR05-Honda. Prior to that, Barber Motorsports Park hosted a testing session in October 2007, the success of which led to a full-field, three-day testing session in March 2009. An open date became available in the 2010 season's race calendar and Barber Motorsports Park made a successful bid to hold the race, over Cleveland (Burke Lakefront Airport), Houston, Baltimore, Nashville, Charlotte and Portland.

Last year's race was completely dominated by Simon Pagenaud, by first taking pole but the final 10 laps of must have felt rather like a repeat of the 2015 race for Graham Rahal, when he closed on Josef Newgarden to finish 2nd. This time, Rahal closed the gap on Simon Pagenaud to within a second and now with only 8 laps to go, Rahal used one of his remaining 8 push-to-passes as he exited Turn 5. As both drivers went through Turn 6, Rahal and Pagenaud touched. Pagenaud went off into the gravel and Rahal took the lead. There was no penalty as Race control decided it was a racing incident. Pagenaud, caught up with Rahal with five laps to go and was handed victory after Rahal clipped Hawksworth's rear tyre guard on the run into Turn 6, destroying most of his front wing. Pagenaud passed Rahal's damaged car, to take the lead and the win. However unlike the year before when he finished 2nd, Rahal finished 6th.

Edit: Rahal finished 2nd last year, like he did in 2015.

Some trivia:
The driver with most wins: 2.
Will Power, 2011, 2012.
Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2013, 2014.
The team with most wins: 4.
Team Penske, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016.

Qualifying was virtually unwatchable. Footage kept freezing and cutting out every couple minutes. Just ridiculous.

Bourdais might be in for a special year. From what I gathered through the freezes, they haven't been good all weekend and Bourdais didn't think they could make it out of first round, but they did. So if they can be mid-pack on off weeks, that's going to be interesting.

I guess this year will be for Newgarden what Pagenaud's first year at Penske was. Look forward to him winning a championship next year